Penrose Path

More about Penrose Path

This image was inspired by residual grief I'm feeling on the 10th anniversary of my father's death. That loss made me, in turn, revisit a tragedy that cast such a shadow within my family that I can't imagine what a sunnier childhood would have been like. On a wintry Friday night in 1980 a station wagon full of teenagers were out for a joy ride when the driver either misjudged a routine left turn, hit some black ice, or both. The car spun out of control and tail whipped into a telephone pole. Most suffered minor injuries or got away unscathed. My uncle, who was seated closest to the point of impact, took the brunt of the collision. He died just after midnight, two weeks shy of his 17th birthday. He was mother's baby brother. I was only a baby when he died so I never knew him directly. Only as an absence--a sadness I wished I could take away from my mother. For years I had dreams when I tried to stop him from getting in the car. In this image I wanted to depict the irrevocability of tragic, sudden death.